Kiss our forests goodbye

[maxx]

http://michiganmessenger.com/13982/u...80%99s-forests

"...Those involved in the project, including high-level state Department of Natural Resources officials, cite a key statistic when they trumpet Mascoma’s promise: Michigan grows about 2.5 times more wood fiber annually than it harvests. But that claim may be misleading.
“It’s a bogus statistic and they’ve been using it for years,” said Anne Woiwode, executive director of the Michigan Sierra Club. According to Woiwode, if that figure is accurate, which many foresters doubt, it would also have to include wood on private lands – lawns, golf courses, parks, small wood lots and preserves...

...One answer is to grow wood quickly. Foresters agreed that a project like Mascoma will pressure forestry planners to concentrate on fast-growing woods and that the state would have to consider “short-rotation energy crops,” such as aspen, poplar and willow.

[When I lived up north near the Straits, my woodsy backyard had some trees the locals called popple. They were so soft, they'd fall over in a breeze. When we cut them up for firewood, they absorbed the rain like sponges and then stank. They were great for making paper. You could crumble a cross-section of the trunk in your bare hands.]
http://www.baymillsnews.com/main.asp...597&TM=7343.75
"...The Kinross-based project will draw "feedstock," or wood, from a 150-mile radius. That puts wood in play well below the bridge and far to the west of Newberry..."

[From Kinross to West Branch is about 168 miles.]

[maxx]

At least the U.P.'s trees are getting some protection.
http://www.mott.org/news/news/2010/N...promomain.aspx
"...“There’s a difference between preservation and conservation,” he said, “and the [Nature] conservancy has approached this project from a purely conservationist point of view - that land can be protected for future generations while serving the economic needs of today.”

[gibran]

I was as told that clear cutting was taking place one hundred yards behind some roads where as not to disturb the tranquility or at least the illusion of the forests.... I was driving near pictured rocks and following dirt roads and saw for myself the devastation of clear cutting...thinking it was a fluke example I saw the same practice while driving in Arkansas.... I was very sadden by the effects... I understand timber industry has been big in replanting forests [[mostly pine...but they serve very little as far as helping all the inhabitants of the forests)... I am no expert...but there should be a better balance. The above article shows we are moving in that direction...set asides and how we develop wetlands has been a good example for this balance... but it falls so short...when we see the effects of man's intervetion for positives we should be encouraged to insist on it... after all I want my grandkids to walk the forests and see the animals and fish the streams...like we all did.